


I Can Do This

by Arya_Greenleaf



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"To the little guys."</p>
<p>Steve didn't know quite what he was in for when Erksine explained to him what the procedure was and what the serum the scientist had developed would do to him. As he strained under the effects of the serum and the VitaRays, Steve wasn't sure if he wanted to do this anymore. But then everything changed and he had to. He had to keep going. He had to be everything that they were expecting of him.</p>
<p>A bit of a stream-of-consciousness piece reflecting the internal struggle and dialogue for Steve Rogers as he becomes the first and only successful subject of Project: Rebirth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can Do This

“That was penicillin.”

Right. Penicillin. Just penicillin. Because it wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed the nurses loading those gigantic vials of blue _something_ into the slots on either side of him. Or the abundance of laboratory equipment. Or that he was strapped down to the table that made him think of _Frankenstein_.

Calm, Steve. Calm. His heart was fluttering wildly in his chest. His head felt like it did that time one of those oafs from school held him down in the water at Coney Island before Bucky came charging up the beach popped the guy right in his big ugly nose. That had been kind of funny. Bloody, but funny.

It was starting. There was whirring and clicking and murmuring and he couldn’t find the space in his brain to process much of anything until suddenly there was pain. Sharp pain. Like the penicillin, but more. Dozens more little prick-points embedding themselves into the skin of his arms and chest.

Calm, Steve. Calm. Nope. There was panic. And where there was panic surely an asthma attack was not far behind. He could barely expand his lungs fully as it was and the strap around his torso felt like it weighed a ton. Had they started the VitaRays yet? Oh God, please let them have started them. He wasn’t sure he could take much more of this. There was so much pressure. It was like his body was going to split wide open. He’d just be pulp on the table like a tomato when it hit the ground from the stand outside the market.

Then, there was a singular moment of perfect clarity. Ringing he hadn’t been aware of in his ears stopped—every sound stopped. He was sure that he’d gone from partial deafness to being completely without hearing. That was wonderful. How was he supposed to be in the Army if he couldn’t hear? They’d give him the boot for sure. Then he’d have to go back to Brooklyn and find some kind of work. He’d have to make sure he could keep the apartment up now that Bucky was gone. He had to make sure that Bucky would have a home to come home to. He’d have to leave art school and find work. Who the hell would give a ninety-five pound deaf guy work was beyond him. He was a decent pickpocket when he needed to be. No one ever noticed him. He had delicate hands. He could squeeze through crowds with relative ease. He might be able to feed himself, but there was no way he’d make rent.

Calm, Steve. Calm. His eyes had been squeezed shut and now they flew open. He was convinced that someone had lit him on fire and needed to see it for himself.

There was more whirring. The table was lifting itself into a vertical position. Steve felt as though he was going to pass out from vertigo as it settled him upright. The damned contraption closed around him like a metal chrysalis. He wasn’t exactly sure he’d be emerging as a butterfly. He wasn’t exactly sure he’d be emerging at all. He couldn’t see Erksine standing in front of the contraption he was contained in—he couldn’t see out the damned window, it was too high—but he knew the man was standing close. His muffled voice came through with the _thudthudthud_ of knuckles against the outside. At least he knew he wasn’t totally deaf.

“I guess it’s too late to go to the bathroom?”

He tried to make light of the situation, to minimize the discomfort he was feeling. This was his only chance; he couldn’t let them stop it. He had to finish it. He couldn’t go back to Brooklyn now. Not when he was _so close_.

They were doing something outside. There was clanging and that ever present whirring and his chrysalis was filling up with steam of some kind. It was getting incredibly warm. He could feel the sweat breaking out on his scalp and running down the back of his neck feeling like ants crawling over his skin.

They must have started the VitaRays.

Calm, Steve. Calm. It just hurt _so_ badly. It was like someone was pulling him apart. Like he was being drawn and quartered. It started the way the ache in his bones had settled in during that brief love affair with puberty and all those growing pains that had amounted to nothing in the end. It settled in the way the cold made all of his joints ache. It just kept getting more and more intense.

Was it getting brighter in there?

Every muscle in his body was getting sore. It felt like that time he’d tried to work at the pier with Bucky and he’d come home feeling like he was going to fall to pieces. That was a short-lived job to say the very least. There was this burn in his arms and legs and back that just didn’t go away for days and days. He didn’t know how the heck Bucky tolerated it himself.

His back hurt like someone was taking him in hand and stretching out each vertebra, straightening each segment and forcing the scoliosis out of him.

Although muffled, new sounds were assaulting him at alarmingly higher pitches and volumes than before. The shouting outside his chrysalis became more urgent and immediate sounding.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the light and the steam, willing the whole experience to just end or hit some tolerable plateau.

Calm, Steve. Calm. How was he supposed to be calm when the strap around his torso was getting tighter and tighter? When it was constricting his breathing even further? When it was pressing into his flesh and making his nerves tingle with the sensation?

The strap popped off, buckle smacking violently against the inside of the chamber.

Where did all this air come from?

Since when did his chest ever expand this easily? Since when was his airway so clear and free?

His head felt light. It was like floating on a cloud, like dreaming with he was awake. His body felt so far away. Was that him making that awful screaming sound? It certainly seemed like it. He should stop.

“No! I can take it!”

He could take it. He knew he could.

His heart stopped sputtering and thudding in his chest and settled into a more regular rhythm. His head continued to swim as he sucked in all of that glorious air. The ache in his bones and his muscles had dulled. He squeezed his eyes shut more tightly against the ever-brightening light—

And then, all of a sudden, it was over.

It was dark inside the chamber. There was movement and scuffling outside. The steam had begun to dissipate, leaving his skin feeling sticky. He could really use a nice cold glass of water or a bucket to dunk his head in.

Oh look, there was Dr. Erksine and Howard Stark standing there as his body slumped forward out of the chrysalis.

There was _so_ much air! Everything was so clear and bright and focused! The smallest sounds felt like a discordant cacophony against his over-stimulated eardrums.

Was he standing on the floor yet? He was pretty sure he was standing on the floor. Was he—

“Taller.”

There was Agent Carter handing him a shirt. She was looking at him with such a weird mixture of pride and—was that disappointment? Sadness? It reminded him of the look Bucky had given him the last time they saw each other.

His world was thrown into motion and confusion. Gunshots. People pushing and shoving. Erksine on the ground. No! No. Who was supposed to explain things to him now? Who was supposed to stand up for the little guy? Who was supposed to tell them that he could do it if they _just gave him a chance?_

Steve took off running. _Whoah!_ Way too much momentum. It was like he’d just gotten these feet. Although, he supposed he had just gotten these feet. They were kind of huge. And he was fast. _So_ fast. But, oh God, where were the breaks on this thing?

_Crash_. Glass from the storefront window rained down around him, mannequins breaking his fall at least partially.

“Sorry!”

What was the cross street? He’d have to go back later and help clean up the mess he’d made. He knew he would never be able to pay for the window. It was the most and the least he could offer.

_Fuck_ , that hurt! He pressed his hand to his side, his fingers coming away stained with blood. Was he going to die? He didn’t think he was going to die. He actually was fairly sure he may be invincible. Not impervious, clearly. That bullet had ripped through his side quite determinedly. But his chest didn’t feel tight. His heart wasn’t pounding. He wasn’t wheezing or hacking.

“I can swim!”

The kid was fine. Calm, Steve. Calm. Dive in after the guy; it’s the only choice that seemed logical. His legs worked against the freezing cold water, he grappled with the hatch of the odd craft the man had slipped into, pulled him up to the surface and onto the pavement.

“Hail HYDRA!”

He was foaming at the mouth, sneering as he died from whatever it was he’d just crunched between his teeth.

Steve looked at his hands. They were big and capable and overtly mannish to match the feet he seemed to have little control over at high speeds. Pick-pocketing his way through the war to keep himself fed certainly wasn’t an option now. Not for the first time since he’d emerged from the chamber, the sounds of the pier and the city beyond hit him like a ton of bricks. The daylight was jarring, everything was sharp and clear and vibrant. He could see the edge of every brick in the wall without standing on top of it. He felt straighter, surer. His chest felt full to bursting in the best way possible.

Whatever had been Erksine’s aim, Steve was pretty sure that he’d managed it.

“It’s locked in your genetic code.”

Now all that was left was to live up to the expectations that Erksine and Phillips and Agent Carter clearly had for him.

“I can’t do this.”

He was in tights. _Tights._ This wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t what being in the Army was supposed to be like. He was _sure_ this wasn’t what Erksine had meant for him.

“Every bond that you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun!”

_Pow!_ Hitler down.

_Flash! Pop!_

“He’s the star-spangled man with a plan!”

“Bring back the girls!”

“That’s what was left of the hundred-and-seventh.”

“The hell I can’t! I’m a Captain!”

“Steve?”

“I joined the Army.”

“Let’s hear it for Captain America!”

He could do this. If they _just_ gave him a chance.

“We’re in.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback!


End file.
